Various physical disorders, especially foot, leg, and back disorders, require the afflicted person to avoid or to minimize pressure upon the foot, particularly the heel of the foot. Often considerable pain will result from activities such as running or jogging and for some even prolonged walking or standing is intolerable. Proper cushioning of the foot will provide relief for many such afflicted persons. Support innersoles of various designs such as those which can be inserted into routine footwear, have been proposed, but have been found to be unsatisfactory. To be effective, a device generally must provide a cushion to the supported area, that is, the portion of the foot overlying the device. It must be neither unyielding, nor so easily compressed that it fails to absorb the shock of walking or running. Rather, an effective device must provide an intermediate resistance to compression, that is, it most provide cushion to both absorb shock and to distribute the weight of the wearer over the supported area.
Not only must the device provide effective cushion, it must also be durable. Present support innersoles which do provide some degree of cushion, often rapidly "buttom-out", that is they become permanently compressed after a short period of use and thereafter provide little or no cushion. This is often the case with closed-cell foams. Sponge rubber and like materials are known which are resilient and do not bottom-out, even after repeated use, but such materials offer no significant resistance to compression and thus, in use, provide substantially no cushion.
Not only is suitable compressive resistance needed to provide proper cushioning, and resiliance needed to avoid rapid bottoming-out but also, most advantageously, an effective device should have the ability to adequately conform itself to the shape of the foot such that the wearer's weight can be distributed substantially evenly over the entire support area.
It is the principle object of the present invention to provide relief from physical disorders which require cushioned support for the foot. More specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide an innersole support device which will provide cushioned support for the wearer.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a support device which does not quickly bottom-out, yet which has suitable resistance to compression to provide proper cushion while in use.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a support device which can conform itself to the shape of the foot to distribute the weight of the wearer substantially evenly over the entire supported area.